Editor's Note

The nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) regime has been held together for nearly four decades by a central bargain between countries that have nuclear weapons and those that do not. In return for swearing off atomic weaponry, non-nuclear-weapon states have extracted a commitment from the nuclear-weapon states to make good-faith efforts toward nuclear disarmament.

This month, in our second installment of a continuing series of articles examining the challenges confronting the nonproliferation regime, we look at the progress made by the five nuclear-weapon states—the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom—in meeting their NPT Article VI disarmament commitments.

In our cover story, Lawrence Scheinman says that the nuclear–weapon states, particularly the United States, have been sending mixed signals about their commitment to disarmament. He suggests some steps, such as the strengthening of a 2002 U.S.-Russian arms control agreement to provide much-needed energy to a slowing disarmament process and a flagging nuclear nonproliferation regime.

Writing from Russia, Alexei Arbatov likewise outlines a series of steps that the nuclear-weapon states, particularly the United States and Russia, could pursue to construct a new approach. But he says that what is first needed is a willingness to acknowledge that old notions of nuclear deterrence are less useful in a post-Cold War, post- 9/11 world and to place a stress on greater cooperation.

Three experts take a look at the record of their countries in meeting their Article VI obligations and the likely strategies their countries will employ at the NPT Review Conference this spring. Jean-David Levitte, France’s ambassador to the United States, notes that France has taken several steps to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in its arsenal and says his country wants to see a “serious, rigorous, and balanced” review of the treaty’s implementation. Li Bin, a Chinese scholar, points out that China’s unique nuclear doctrine allows it to play a crucial role as an intermediary between the nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.” And William Walker, a scholar at St. Andrews University in Scotland, examines how the United Kingdom finds itself caught between the Bush administration’s approach to nuclear disarmament and its own inclinations.

In a related article, John Carlson, a senior Australian government official, looks at another thorny issue: how to verify and cobble together a treaty that would end new production of weapons-related plutonium and highly enriched uranium.

When diplomats from these countries gather in New York in May they are certain to claim that their countries have made good on their Article VI commitments. But as the articles in this issue all make clear, when it comes to discouraging other countries from acquiring nuclear weapons, the five nuclear-weapon states’ actions now and in the future will say more to the rest of the world than their words.